The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Friday, December 20

Episode Date: December 20, 2019

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are locked in a procedural fight over the format of President Trump's impeachment trial.The Senate was expected to begin the trial in January, but cannot do so until they have officially received the articles of impeachment from the House.After some Democrats expressed concerns that Senate Republicans would not conduct the trial in good faith, Pelosi has held off on transmitting the articles as senators negotiate the trial's format.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, Congressional correspondent Susan Davis, senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro, and senior political editor and correspondent Ron Elving. Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, real quick before we start the show. Since impeachment got underway, the squad here at NPR Politics has made more than 50 daily episodes. Sometimes more than daily to keep you informed about what's happening and why it matters. And we're able to do that and to put it out there for free because of support from listeners like you. You and everybody else who listens to our shows are the biggest source of financial support for NPR's member stations.

No matter where or how you hear us every day, the fact is that the stations are the reason this podcast exists in the first place. So if you enjoy our podcast, please take a second to give back. Donate online to support us and your local station by heading to donate.npr.org slash politics. Hi, this is Chloe. And this is Matt. And we're calling from the car at hour 18 of our road trip from Boston to South Bend, or as we're calling it, from Warrenville to Buttigieg Town. This podcast was recorded at 1.09 p.m. on Friday, December 20th.

And things may have changed by the time you're listening. We will definitely be on our holiday vacation. Enjoy the show. By the time you hear this podcast, I will also be on my holiday vacation. Those people actually have no reason to go to South Bend other than to make that joke. Do you think that they're doing the Pete Buttigieg dance in the car on the way there? Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress.

I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And I am Ron Elving, editor correspondent. All right. So when we left off on Wednesday night, our impeachment podcast, Sue, you were talking about how Nancy Pelosi had just made a little news. She said, yes, we just voted for impeachment, but we're not sending it over to the Senate right away for the trial. What has happened since then? So Pelosi is doing this because technically the Senate cannot start their trial until they receive official word from the House. And the people that deliver that official word to the Senate are the impeachment managers who are members of the Democratic caucus. And Pelosi is doing this. It's with in terms of a deal of the trial before I let you know who I'm going to send over.

If it was a power move, it was a responsive one when McConnell had already gone out and said, I'm not an impartial juror. I'm not feeling impartial about this at all. I am in constant contact with the White not feeling impartial about this at all. I am in constant contact with the White House. We are planning this strategy together. And she felt that that was just a little out of line, perhaps, and she thought she was going to fire back. You know, you got to be careful about overplaying your hand here if you're the Democrats in the House. But, you know, she did raise the issue. And now people are talking about the fairness of the Senate trial. I think she wants to give it a couple of days where people are focused on what the terms of the trial will be.

It's a little bit of more of a political strategy. There was this moment when she opened the door to this. There was this question of like, wait a minute, is the House never going to send these articles over? Are we going to be in this sort of suspended animation? And Democrats made clear before they left town, no, they will send them over. They're just trying to keep a little pressure on the Senate and give a little room to Chuck Schumer, you know, Pelosi's counterpart in the Senate, to try and extract some commitments from McConnell, who, as Ron said, has made clear he doesn't have an interest in the same kind of trial, to come to terms that Democrats can be comfortable with. And keep impeachment a live story through the holidays. So it doesn't just become, ah, the House did that. Now the Senate's going to acquit him. Let's open the gifts. Yeah. I mean, I think that might be a big part of this possibly is just that, you know,

President Trump has made it clear on Twitter in the last 24 hours, he wants to move on to the Senate trial. He wants his trial. He wants his acquittal. He wants to be able to move on to his reelection and barrel forward. And this leaves a little cloud of uncertainty, not a huge cloud of uncertainty, but a little cloud of uncertainty hanging over it and may mean that he doesn't get his like the instant gratification of an immediate Senate acquittal. Yeah. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made clear he's not really moved by Pelosi's play here. He gave kind of a broad side on the Senate floor, attacking the process and Democrats and making it very clear where he stands. So if Mitch McConnell is feeling any pressure to come to the table, he's not showing

it. It's a little bit different in the Senate. Republicans control it, so they have more leverage. But he's got to keep his own members on board here, and he doesn't have as much latitude as Pelosi does in the House. But he feels pretty strong that he's got Republicans behind him. And what Republicans want to do, and they have an argument to make because there's precedent, they want to do this the way that they did it for the Clinton impeachment. They want to come to the first term of a deal to just set the terms of the trial, how many hours a day, how long you're going to hear arguments. And then if they want to hear from some more witnesses, they'll come to that at the end of that process. Chuck Schumer is trying to get Republicans to agree on the front end to hear

from witnesses. Specifically, he's naming people like acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton. Republicans are not going to agree to that. That's just not going to happen. But they just want to keep the pressure on it and keep the focus on the fact that they don't want to hear from those witnesses. Well, I think the thing here that's going to be really interesting, though, is the longer that this plays out, the more it's going to bleed over into the Democratic primary calendar as it is impeachment and 2020 have been on these two separate tracks. And, you know, the last thing

Democrats want is to have results in Iowa popping up with a split screen of an impeachment trial. Well, and I can think of like several people, especially who don't want that. And that would be the senators who are running for president who don't want to be trapped in Washington for a trial when they'd much rather be in Iowa and New Hampshire campaigning. And they are compelled, they are compelled to be there for the trial. If it's six days a week, they have to sit there at their desk six days a week and they can't go to Iowa or New Hampshire. So one thought that I've been having over the last day or so is that impeachment is like the ultimate most serious form of censure for a president. And yet, if you look at President Trump, he doesn't look like somebody who's been censured or even slapped on the hand. He keeps saying, in fact, I don't feel like we're being impeached.

And he, of course, does. And he, of course, is upset about it on some level. But from a political standpoint, whether he's talking to his crowd in Battle Creek, or whether he is tweeting, or whether he's storming around the White House, he has every reason to see this in terms that could work in his favor come November. He also has reason to, right? If you step back and look at the polls, not just our own NPR poll that was out this week, but all the other national polls at the end of this impeachment process, impeachment looks like it's kind of a wash. Look, it's still not good for the president. Do not get me wrong. Nobody wants to be impeached. But we have not seen a sort of seismic tidal wave against the president on this issue. People are more dug in. Yes, half the country believes he should be removed from office.

But the Republicans I talked to on the Hill look at this and they don't feel that nervous about it. They don't think that impeachment is going to be the thing that fundamentally hurts Donald Trump in a reelection. And I think it sort of gives him that sort of brash confidence this week as he's being impeached to kind of be as large of life as we expect him to be at these political rallies. He has not been humbled by this in any way. And weirdly, Democrats aren't feeling nervous about it either because they were nervous going into this feeling like maybe their maybe support would slip because people would be against impeachment because independents had been tracking with Republicans against impeachment. That flipped at the end of September. Then it receded a little bit and everybody's basically split down the middle. Yeah. And to Sue's point about Trump,

like he went into this rally in Battle Creek, Michigan. He had as the House is impeaching him as he's being impeached, literally as he's being impeached, almost waited for it. He gives his longest rally speech of all time. And what was it? It was just over two hours. And then as part of this speech, he goes after a dead congressman. He was, in a sense, going after that dead congressman's widow, who is now his replacement in Congress, and her vote to impeach him after the president said he had done all these great things to recognize John Dingell. John Dingell was the longest serving member of the House of Representatives in history, recently died. And the president had this to say about him in that Battle Creek speech. I gave him everything. That's okay. I don't want anything for it. I don't need anything for anything. She calls me up. It's the nicest thing that's ever happened. Thank you so much.

John would be so thrilled. He's looking down. He'd be so thrilled. Thank you so much, sir. I said, that's okay. Don't worry about it. Maybe he's looking up. He'd be so, thank you so much, sir. I said, that's okay. Don't worry about it. Maybe he's looking up. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe.

But let's assume he's looking down. Implying that he's in hell. And the crowd groaned. There were groans. There were cheers. There were hell. And the crowd groaned. There were groans, there were cheers, there were whistles, but there were groans too. And he sort of implied like, oh, well, I thought that since I did this nice thing for Debbie Dingell, the congresswoman and widow, that, well, she'd be against impeachment. But no, she voted for impeachment. The president thinks everything is transactional. You know, you do someone a personal favor,

even if he didn't do the favor, you know, that that person owes them and should never speak out against anything that they do. And, you know, these are real people involved here. You know, John Dingell loved Debbie Dingell. They were inseparable. And Debbie Dingell tweeted that the president really hurt her feelings and that this is her first Christmas without John Dingell. And I think it's just a reminder of, you know, the fact that people are really dealing with real loss here. And, you know, this isn't something that Trump, though, seems to think about. And he crossed a political line. It's one of those rare moments where there was a lot of criticism

coming from within the Republican Party on that remark. John Dingell was beloved in Capitol Hill. He was beloved in Michigan. I mean, he is a legend in American politics. And you saw senior members of the House Republican Conference coming out and saying that was beyond the pale. The president shouldn't talk like that. John Dingell was a good man. So it's hard for Trump to say things that prompt criticism within his own party. We know that. And so you have to understand the Dingell comment in that context, that it did cross a line in Michigan and in his own party that, you know, just leave John Dingell out of this.

But it's actually sort of a pattern. He's crossed a very similar line. It is the wellest hurts. If Donald Trump is going to be exonerated, and certainly his own mind and many people's minds, by an acquittal in the Senate, if that means Donald Trump unleashed, perhaps to an even greater degree than we have seen to date, that could have implications as well, because Donald Trump unleashed is Donald Trump to some degree imperiled. We are going to take a quick break. And when we get back, we're going to talk about how all of this might fit into the 2020 campaign. Support for this podcast and the following message come from You Studio.

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And we're back. And Ron, I have sort of a historical question for you, which is that Richard Nixon is remembered as the president who was run out of office on the eve of potentially being impeached. There is an asterisk next to Bill Clinton's name that says that president was impeached. President Trump has now been impeached. But is that what he's going to be remembered for, do you think? It's certainly one of the things he'll be remembered for. It'll certainly be one of the things in the obituary, as they say. But whether or not it's in the first line or the first paragraph or even in the first few paragraphs will entirely depend on whether or not he wins a second term. If he wins a second term, I think to some degree he erases the asterisk of impeachment and becomes the one

president who was ever impeached and then reelected. And in terms of that reelection bid, President Trump got a pretty big victory this week. The House of Representatives passed, ratified the USMCA. This is the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement. It's the replacement for NAFTA. President Trump had campaigned on how he was going to tear up NAFTA. And now he is going to be able to say pretty soon promises kept. I really loved this week in politics because I think it is about what I like about politics is it doesn't always have to make sense. And two competing things can be happening at the same time. And in the middle of the week, the House of Representatives impeached the president for allegations that he

is undermining U.S. elections and a threat to national security. I mean, pretty heavy stuff. And in the bookend of that week, you have the same House of Representatives delivering him one of his camp signature campaign promises that could help his reelection chances. And on the other end of the week was another big win for the president where they passed the spending bill. But it's two more promises that the three more promises the president can campaign on that he's increased defense spending more than any other president, which has been a huge priority of his, that they reached a bipartisan agreement to give 12 weeks of paid federal leave to millions of federal workers. And he got the Space Force, which has

also been a big win for him. I mean, these things are the kind of things that give presidents cause to go out on the campaign trail and say promises made, promises kept. Give me four more years. And that's a compelling argument for people. And look at what, you know, President Trump's approval ratings have been in the Midwest. I mean, he has been upside down in places like Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin. And a lot of that has to do with the trade wars. So if he can sort of fix that, even though it's another crisis of his own making that he can then say that he made some tweaks to NAFTA and has a whole new big deal that are going to bring jobs

back, Sue's right. That's going to give him something to at least crow about and maybe help those numbers a little bit, because right now it is his biggest political vulnerability and he's got to do well there and he's got to get those numbers back up. I want to go back to the calendar conversation a little bit, because this has passed the House, but it has not yet been taken up by the Senate. In fact, there are a lot of things that have not been taken up by the Senate. And there's been a lot of criticism of Democrats in the House. We're taking forever on this. But it's not like the Senate is now rushing to pass it. No, I mean, this is just good old political gamesmanship. They have the votes in the Senate. It's going to pass. The reason why Mitch McConnell saying I can't possibly do USMCA until after we complete the impeachment trial is Republicans thought one of their best lines of attack against

Democrats for this past year has been look at them dilly-dallying on USMCA. They think it's been one of their most effective political messaging. Vice President Mike Pence was out on the campaign trail saying that we need to get this done. So you want to just drag out the time it's going to take to get done. I think you can anticipate hearing from Senate Republicans throughout that entire trial. We should be doing things like USMCA and not wasting our time on an impeachment trial. It's really just a political messaging talking point. It's not about the ultimate fate of the trade bill. And speaking of the calendar, I mean, think about how long the Senate trial could go on

and time this out a little bit. We're into the early weeks of February, potentially. And I just want to highlight what's going on that first week of February, because Sunday, February 2nd is the Super Bowl. Everyone's going to be tuning into that. Monday is the Iowa caucuses. Tuesday now, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, has invited President Trump to deliver the State of the Union on February 4th. Can you imagine? That is going to be quite the week. And also, by the way, awkward. And then that Friday, I think it's that Friday, there's another Democratic debate in New Hampshire. They are just trying to kill the podcast. No,

they're trying to kill political reporters. The podcasters. Yes. No, the podcast will be fine. The podcasters will be under a table asleep just asleep especially if the impeachment trial isn't wrapped up by that yeah because then you would have the president of the united states sort of providing his own defense or rebuttal to the whole impeachment concept in the house chamber with both senators and house members right there in front of his jurors and the prosecution. The State of the Union is what it is. Is weird. Okay, we are going to leave it there. And when we come back, can't let it go. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Uber. Uber is committed to safety and to

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On the new episode of Invisibilia from NPR. And we are back and it is time for Can't Let It Go, the part of the podcast where we talk about the things we cannot stop thinking about politics or otherwise. Ron Elving, you're up. This week, we saw a very interesting editorial in Christianity Today. Now, full disclosure, as the son and grandson of evangelical ministers, Christianity Today in my home was the living, breathing embodiment of Billy Graham because he founded it. And so it was present in our home the way Time magazine would be present in someone's home. And so to have the editor of that magazine as more or less his parting shot, because he is retiring,

write this editorial to a readership that is obviously among the strongest supporting elements of Donald Trump's base, is at least remarkable. So let's look at just a little bit of what Mark Ghaly wrote. But the facts in this instance are unambiguous. The President of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the President's political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution. More importantly, it is profoundly immoral. And may I add, thus endeth the lesson. That was his editorial calling for not just the impeachment, but the removal of President Trump. Suffice it to say, it will be

the most controversial editorial that has ever appeared in Christianity today. It's a good reminder that evangelicals are not a monolith. You know, we talk so much about how evangelical voters have been the core and backbone of Trump's support, but it's like the broad brush we paint them in is not as nuanced as they are as a block of voters. Well, look, in our polling, 75% of white evangelical Christians approved of the job President Trump was doing. 22% were against it. So there's going to be a quarter who don't like what he's doing. And President Trump, it turns out, does not like having editorials written about him in Christianity Today. He has tweeted about it at least three

times already today. And in one tweet, he says, a far left magazine or very progressive, as some would call it, which has been doing poorly and hasn't been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years, Christianity Today knows nothing about reading a perfect transcript of a routine call. Sue, what can't you let go of? The thing I can't let go this week is the thing that brought me the most unexpected joy, which happened around Wednesday evening when I was hours into special coverage of the impeachment vote on the House floor, when the embargo was lifted on Cats reviews. Yes. Yes.

Cats being the film version of the campy cult classic Broadway musical hit Cats. Which, let's just be clear, the Broadway musical hit was terrible. And apparently the movie is too. I haven't seen the movie or the musical, but the thing I can't let go is the reviews of Cats. And I really love if you ever read like a poison pen review or when people just hate something, it can really provoke some of the funniest best writing. So these are just some of my favorite of the Cats reviews that I was cracking up in my booth reading while I was watching the House impeach the president. A very somber, somber occasion. This is from The Telegraph. I challenge anyone whose retinas have been torched by the sight of Dame Judi Dench's furry crotch to open their mouths for anything other than a hollow

scream. This is from the Salt Lake Tribune. Each cat in competition will sing a song about themselves, explaining who they are and why they deserve the prize. This is all well and good if one doesn't dwell on the fact that the prize is death. There were a lot of cat puns also with some of these reviews. Vanity Fair is one that kind of struck me because it said by no means is it a good movie. And they said that he left the premiere ready to toss an easy critical bomb but then he said the more i sat with cats or with the uh memory of cats the more i realized how much i don't want to outright hate it it's an ugly stray who smells bad and should not be invited into your home certainly and yet it is its own kind of living

creature worthy of at least some basic compassion well I wonder if this is one of those things that it's so bad it actually people go see it. People go see it for bad. Sometimes people want to experience it and just judge for themselves if they think it's as bad as the reviewers do. Like a James Franco movie? Yeah. And one of the gizmodo of their review was, I have been processing this movie for the last 24 hours trying to understand anything as terrifying and visceral a train wreck as Cats. You have to see Cats. Meanwhile, the NPR headline was, Cats, spay it.

So I'm not going to say I want to see Cats now, but I would say if I'm like stuck on a long flight and it's an option on the movie, I might have a couple drinks and watch it. So it's really highbrow comedy. I will go next. And my can't let it go is that Beto O'Rourke, who dropped out of the presidential race about a month ago, it turns out has not shaved since then. Oh, no way. Yeah, he's got a beard and it's like a pretty full beard. He doesn't look like a guy that would grow a full beard. Does not.

It turns out he can grow a full beard. Now, it looks like, based on the photo, that he's sort of new to the beard thing. So he hasn't trimmed the neck or cut the lines yet. It's just like a lot of hair. But he got one positive review for his beard from Ted Cruz. Who has also done the beard thing. who has also done the beard thing. Who's also done the beard thing. Yeah, you know, I think sometimes politicians, male politicians, if they lose a race, they

sometimes just sort of like go to hiding, stop shaving for a while, and then they reemerge and they've got a beard. Has he been seen in sackcloth and maybe, you know, eating locust and stuff and living out in the wilderness? Oh, I think it looks pretty good. I'm a beard person. I like beards. But I think, you know, he can work it.

He needs to shave the neck. The neck beard is never a good look on anyone. It's never okay. Yeah. You know, this is a very long history of beards of defeat. Yes. Al Gore. Famous Al Gore.

Oh, yeah. Al Gore grew a beard and went and taught at Columbia Journalism School. Remember that? There were a whole lot of people who just have done this. And Slate actually put a definition of defeat beard in their story about Beto O'Rourke and said, A defeat beard is a sign of contemplation and surrender, but it's also a signifier of masculinity, insulating O'Rourke from the feminizing effect of being seen to contemplate or surrender. Maybe overthinking it a bit. Why is that feminizing? I'm pretty sure. Yeah, why is it feminizing to lose being seen to contemplate or surrender. Maybe overthinking it a bit. Why is that feminizing?

I'm pretty sure. Yeah, why is it feminizing to lose? I don't know. Take it up with Christina Catarucci. Domenico, what can't you let go of? I'm going to turn things to a little bit more joy here, and I literally mean holiday joy because, you know, something amazing happened.

Everybody knows Mariah Carey's hit, All I Want for Christmas. And for the first time, 25 years after its release, it went to number one on the charts. I heard that this week. I was amazed by that, that this is the first time it's been number one. I mean, you would think around Christmas that it would, you know, take off every year. It routinely is seen as the number one Christmas song overall. I mean, it is a superb It's a great song. It does make me want to like wrap

Christmas presents and drink eggnog every time I hear it. Is this not the second time we've ended this podcast with this song this season? It's fine. You need some joy. I think it's great. It's going to become a Christmas podcast tradition. Definitely channels your anxiety to get that rapping done. Maybe, maybe it's because the NPR Politics Podcast talked about this about a month ago,

said it was an appropriate thing to start listening to Christmas music. And then look what happened to the charts. And everybody went to download it. That's power. And to all of you who are hitting the road to celebrate the holidays and taking us with you, thank you so much for listening. A reminder that the best way to support the podcast is to support your local NPR member station.

And that's true even if you listen on Spotify. So head over to donate.npr.org slash politics. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the slash politics. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And I'm Ron Elving, editor correspondent.

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.